Ziva David: Redemption
by storytell18
Summary: Disgraced and depressed, Ziva David is brought back to Mossad in order to infiltrate a terrorist group before they reach the United States and take out NCIS. Rated T for violence, some nudity, innuendo, and language. Tiva, McAbby, and other pairings.
1. Broken Record

**Author's Notes**

Welcome to my first NCIS story, and the first story I have written that is not Teen Titans. The story deals with Ziva, who after the events of "Past, Present, and Future" is a disgraced, depressed, reclusive alcoholic hiding in Israel, her mind haunted by the events that had happened in the past year and desperately missing the one man alive that she loves – Anthony DiNozzo. However, she is given a chance for redemption when Mossad director Orli Elbaz requests her for a very unique assignment – to go undercover in a a terror network that rivals the Brotherhood of Doubt in power, and one that has set its sights on NCIS as a result of the capture and death of Parsa.

The overall structure for the story will be a lot like a standard episode of NCIS, complete with the iconic foofs (the black and white shots just after and just before a commercial break) as bookends for each chapter, a bit of foreshadowing for what lies ahead. While Ziva's undercover operation and her desire for redemption will make up the main story, the entire NCIS team (Gibbs, Tony, McGee, Bishop, Abby, Ducky, Palmer, and Vance, plus others) will appear as well in side-stories of their continuing investigations and how it begins to tie into Ziva's undercover mission, bringing Ziva closer to the family she had left behind.

Please review and tell me if you think I have the ability to write non-Teen Titans fan fiction stories or not.

Before we begin, I remind you that I do not own any of the characters appearing in NCIS, the show NCIS, nor the actual NCIS agency. It'd be kind of sweet if I had claim on any one of them, though.

Now, let's begin the story.

* * *

**Foof. Ziva looks at her guest in shock as she slowly takes the papers being handed to her.**

January 2014. It's been eight months since Ziva David resigned from NCIS, a measure taken by herself and fellow members of the Major Crime Response Team Anthony DiNozzo and Timothy McGee to protect their boss, Leroy Jethro Gibbs from a Department of Defense investigation led by the ambitious Richard Parsons.

Within the next week of resignation, Ziva had flown back to Israel to think things over when an attempt was made on her life by the Brotherhood of Doubt, a terrorist cell led by Pakistani radical Benham Parsa. It was not hard for Ziva to dispatch the gunmen but it did wound her and she had recovered by July.

Unfortunately, the attack and its aftermath had changed Ziva. She had lost one of her few friends upon her learning that Ziva killed Ari Haswari, her lover and Ziva's half-brother. So, she went towards the house in which she grew up for isolation and to finally sort out what she really wanted.

In October, DiNozzo, who had spent months looking for her, finally found her, but in an extremely painful decision for Ziva, she decided to stay behind in Israel, feeling unable to return to Washington DC after all the events that had transpired starting with the death of her father, Mossad Director Eli David.

Fortunately for Ziva, her dispatching of Parsa's assassins made him realize that a regular hitman operation would be useless and since she was no longer on the grid - no cell phone, no credit card, no laptop, no electronics, which made tracking her down nigh impossible. And her father had left her a sizable trust fund (over 15 million Euros) courtesy of his days in Mossad, so she didn't need to get a job for a while - she could quite possibly be able to retire right then and there.

However, she was far from content with her current life, tedious and isolated. She once again had nobody, no family, no friends, not even Mossad knew where she was.

While she wanted security, it came with the cost of total privacy. As the hours ticked by in her empty home, Ziva realized that she was not hiding from Parsa, but rather from everybody she had come to care about.

It had all started back in 2005, almost nine years ago, when Ziva, under the orders of her father, murdered Ari Haswari, a rogue double agent and gained Gibbs's trust so she could join NCIS as a liaison officer. She spent around three years under Gibbs's tutelage before she was temporarily reassigned back to Mossad in order to help solve a mole problem in NCIS.

However, while on assignment with Mossad, Ziva began a long-distance romance with one of her fellow Mossad Kidon (assassin) comrades, Michael Rivkin, which piqued Tony's curiousity when Michael came stateside on assignment for Mossad, killing several members of a terrorist cell in Los Angeles that were wanted for NCIS questioning.

This wasn't the tip of the iceberg, as even though Gibbs had ordered Rivkin to stay away from Ziva, he still continued to operate in the states, trying to spy on a high-profile poker game, or a "intelligence summit" with the directors of several federal agencies and the Secretary of the Navy, resulting in the death of a federal agent.

Tony figured it out and confronted Rivkin after he killed another terrorist and took his computer, ending with Tony fatally shooting Rivkin _in Ziva's apartment_ soon before Ziva herself arrived, resulting in massive tensions between NCIS and Mossad.

Unable to trust Tony, Ziva resigned her position as liasion officer and returned full time as Michael's replacement on a mission to terminate the terrorist leader Rivkin had been gathering information on - Saleem Ulmann. A mission that went south when Ziva ended up the only member of the team that could continue, and was captured after being embarrassingly outnumbered (around forty or fifty guards against one highly trained Mossad operative). While Ziva was good, she was overpowered and spent the next several months being interrogated and tortured in any way thought possible by Ulmann for information on NCIS.

Mossad didn't rescue her from the camp, but thanks to the dedication of NCIS, Tony and McGee infiltrated the camp and rescued Ziva from Ulmann. Following these events, Ziva resigned from Mossad only for her father to try to pin the murder of a Marine she had encountered traveling to the camp on her. Upon being cleared, Ziva cut her ties with Mossad and her father, officially becoming an official NCIS agent and a citizen of the United States.

Her past, though, refused to stay buried as Eli arrived in DC over a year later for a conference with NCIS Director Leon Vance, dealing with the mission that had launched their careers, and came back to try to kill them. Surviving it, Eli partially reconciled with Ziva before returning to Mossad.

This would not be the last time they met as two years later, in 2013, Eli supposedly returned for the Shabbat, but it was actually arranging a peace with Arash Kazmi, his old friend and Iranian equivalent, and had inadvertently killed a journalist who discovered he was here.

Shortly after Ziva confronted him about the murder, a gunman proceeded to assassinate Eli as well as Jacqueline, the wife of Director Vance, leaving Ziva angry and heartbroken, feelings that only grew when Eli's protege, Deputy Director Ilan Bodnar was revealed to have hired the hitman.

When she was not on duty at NCIS, Ziva spent her free time using all of her contacts to track down Bodnar, in spite of several government agencies (namely the CIA and Homeland Security) warning her not to, eventually finding him trying to flee to South Africa with a fortune of uncut diamonds, and murdering him by throwing him off a ship he was trying to escape from, which NCIS labeled as self-defense when she tried to apprehend him.

This incident led to the investigation of NCIS that resulted in her resignation and departure from the life she had once known.

Now, completely alone, Ziva spent her days tending around her house and drinking alcohol at an unnerving pace as she tried to wash away the painful memories that now haunted her, the good and the bad, trying to become a new person.

But, no matter how drunk she got (she frequently downed an entire bottle a day), her mind still remembered everything. Her ability to sleep was impeded by these memories, surfacing themselves as nightmares of things that could have been, normally pleasant dreams that disturbed her to no end. And her alcohol consumption was definitely not helping her sleep.

It was another day for the ever depressed Ziva, and more than once, she had pondered suicide. She pulled out her .38 hammerless revolver, her old back-up gun from NCIS and opened the cylinder, unloading all the rounds inside save for one.

Speaking to herself, she muttered as she pointed to an unloaded chamber with her thumb, "He loves me." Moving her finger to the only chamber with a live bullet in it, she continued, "He loves me not."

Putting the cylinder back in her Smith & Wesson, Ziva spun it to an unknown chamber, of which she could not tell if the chamber had a bullet or not. Pointing the gun underneath her chin, Ziva pulled the trigger, waiting to see if her life was about to end.

And just like always, the gun clicked empty as no bullet was present in the chamber. Tossing the gun away, Ziva slumped down on the chair she was sitting in and began tearing up over everything that had happened to her, that nothing would be right in the end, that she was utterly irredeemable.

However, fate had something else in store for Ziva rather than misery.

* * *

It had been yet again another monotonous day for Ziva David as the ex-assassin turned federal agent, as she had woken up from her slumber on a half-made bed. Ever since Tony had returned to the states, she hadn't felt much need to make it as she could seldom stay asleep anyways and there was nobody there.

Slipping out of her clearly worn blue nightshirt and pants, Ziva went to take her shower, washing off her body and taking care of her hair, which had since grown down to her waist from months without a cut.

After the shower, Ziva got dressed in a simple black shirt and jeans, which evidently had been used several times without a wash. There was a lot Ziva was no longer doing since she basically abandoned everything about her life.

Now dressed, Ziva went to her kitchen, pulling out a pita bread and a bottle of wine, pouring herself a glass as she began taking bites out of the bread. She would have to go shopping soon - she was almost out of food.

After breakfast, Ziva walked out onto the patio and simply rested, waiting for what was next in her increasingly vanishing world, quickly turning into the house she grew up in - and the painful memories that accompanied her life.

As the hours ticked by, she soon retreated back into the house, taking care to lock the door behind her, keeping a handgun on her at all times. She may be retired, but she didn't want to be caught off guard. As she headed into the house, she returned to the kitchen and grabbed the open bottle of wine, taking another swig before setting it down.

Taking a seat on her chair, she simply looked at the empty bottles of alcohol laying around the floor. _I have to clean these up - I do not want to be walking on broken glass._

As she simply sat, she began staring back at her wallet, which had been open and revealed a picture of her and Tony back during their undercover operation at the Marine Corps Birthday gala. She gave a ghost of a smirk to it as she remembered some of the fondest moments she had with her companion "hairy butt". How the two fooled the FBI agents watching them by appearing to have sex (though, admittedly they did have sex, very real sex which even McGee could not refute as acting).

Then came the time inside of that shipping container - what a stupid idea in which they found themselves locked inside while getting cover from gunmen. Only through pure chance did they manage to make it out alive and catch those responsible.

She flash-forwarded to when she was beginning to see Michael Locke and how Tony suspected him of being the apprentice or copy-cat of serial killer Andrew Hoffman. Ziva never doubted his innocence and was proven right when Locke's fingerprint didn't match those found on the knife, but it resulted in her having to break it off with him as he could no longer trust her. Then came her disastrous affair with Rivkin, how she thought she loved him to point where she nearly killed Tony because of it. How foolish she was, and it nearly got her killed.

Now it came Ziva and Tony's assignments in Paris, where they never divulged who slept on the couch, if anyone, and lastly Berlin, where they went to apprehend Bodnar, but caught Yaniv Bodnar, Ilan's brother instead. It took Berlin to make Ziva realize that perhaps she was in love with Tony, truly in love with him, but she was not sure if he reciprocated.

His last time seeing her validated those feelings, but it was too late, leaving Ziva heartbroken.

As she reminisced about her lost flame, she began to sense that somebody was coming towards her. She raised from her chair and pulled out the SIG-Sauer P229 handgun she kept on her person, slowly and quietly heading for the door in which she was hearing the intruder.

She aimed her SIG at the doorway, slowly opening the door while keeping the gun ready, and yelled, "Hands where I can see them! Do it or I shoot!"

Suddenly, she felt the faint trace of a gun pointed at the back of her own head. The intruder remarked, "I'd have expected better, Ziva. You've gotten sloppy."

Ziva knew that voice and turned around to see who had come into her house, not flinching in the face of the gun now in her face. "Director Elbaz?" The intruder was Orli Elbaz, director of Mossad and successor to her father, the former director of Mossad up until his assassination.

"Nice to see you too Ziva." Elbaz lowered her Glock 17 and holstered it, proceeding to walk towards Ziva's couch holding a briefcase. Ziva asked her, "If you came in from behind, who came at the doorway?"

"Another Mossad officer who needed some experience. Come, sit."

Ziva lowered her own gun and headed towards her chair and sitting down in it, facing Orli Elbaz, asking, "What are you doing here? How did you even find this place?"

"We're Mossad, Ziva. We never keep our eyes closed. We've known where you've been for months."

"Tony?"

"We figured it out on our own and respected your privacy."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because of certain developments that have arisen." Elbaz opened the briefcase and soon revealed a mound of files and pictures inside. She began to explain as she pulled out the first picture, "Benham Parsa, leader of the Brotherhood of Doubt, the terrorist organization responsible for the assassination of Clayton Jarvis and the attempt on your life."

Ziva asked, "What is all of this about?"

"Let me finish, and you won't have any questions. Anyway, Parsa had been running a low profile, conducting several attacks in the United States in cooperation with several corrupt businessmen. While Jarvis's murder made Parsa number one on the Navy's most wanted list, what sealed the proverbial deal was an attack on a Department of Defense gala."

"McGee had a girlfriend named Delilah, she was DoD. What happened to her?"

"From what we can make out, she was at the reception and while she survived, she was permanently paralyzed. Parsa managed to escape the country before the authorities could apprehend him. However, he was ultimately intercepted thanks to the work of Eleanor Bishop, an NSA analyst who had been assigned to work for NCIS."

"Gibbs?"

"He requested her. Bishop was an expert on Parsa, having studied him immensely, and been taunted by him just as much. Parsa was brought on board a Navy ship for interrogation, requesting Bishop to perform said interrogation, but he wanted her so he could finally finish her off, having become just as obsessed with her as she was of him. Gibbs killed Parsa before he could finish off Bishop."

"Okay, not that this story had been informative, but why are you telling me this?"

"One of our operatives in Pakistan discovered a massive terrorist organization, one that rivaled that of Parsa. With his death, said organization is beginning to claim power over the forces in the region. We're looking at a force north of twenty thousand men just in the Middle East. Their power will grow beyond our control, and will spread to the Americas. We need your help, Ziva."

"To do what?" Ziva was skeptical of Elbaz, unsure of just where this was going, though she had a vague idea of what exactly it was.

"Go undercover in the organization and bring it down. If they become too powerful, they will not be stopped. We could be looking at a third world war, nuclear war."

"Why me? Why not Eschel, Malachai, or Liat? I'm not Mossad anymore, remember?"

"That is true, but they are all occupied with other assignments. You were one of the best, Ziva. You're the only one that can succeed."

"What makes you so sure? I haven't been part of Mossad in close to five years."

Elbaz pulled out several more documents, revealing very familiar pictures. "If they succeed, their first targets will be NCIS." Ziva could only stare at the pictures of Gibbs, Tony, McGee, and Bishop at their homes, the photos having been taken at a distance. Then came pictures of Abby and Ducky, along with Palmer and Vance. She couldn't let anything happen to them, even if she wasn't NCIS anymore.

Elbaz handed some more documents to Ziva, noting, "The details of your assignment." She already knew that Ziva had accepted.

Ziva stared in shock at Elbaz as she slowly took the papers being handed to her.

**Foof.**

* * *

Okay, that ends the first chapter of _Ziva David: Redemption_. The next chapter will serve more of Ziva getting back into the game before her assignment, as well as giving us a look at our favorite NCIS agents. More detail is to come on the antagonists, and many familiar faces will be joining the game.


	2. Donkey's Butt

**Author's Notes**

I'm sorry about the severe delay between the first chapter and this one, but there are a few reasons:  
a) Lack of reviews  
b) Priorities on other stories  
c) Busy schedule  
d) I couldn't get the quality to a level that I wanted.  
e) The natural difficulty of writing a story based on an ongoing series. With my _Teen Titans_ fanfictions, the show was finished, so there were no unexpected changes that would affect the canon of them. Whereas with NCIS, because it is still ongoing (and likely will continue for years), what I write may wind up becoming non-canon (just like many NCIS fanfictions written years ago). For the most part, I try to stay within the continuity of the source material and expanding on it, so by doing this fanfiction, it becomes very risky to this principle. I don't know if this is necessarily possible in the canon of the show. I just have to make sure it is and try to maintain that continuity as much as I can.  
f) Lack of ideas for the story.

In this section, I respond to reviews and offer information on the story to come. For the purposes of the story, Gibbs = Leroy Jethro Gibbs, DiNozzo = Anthony DiNozzo, McGee = Timothy McGee, Bishop = Eleanor Bishop, Abby = Abigail Sciuto, Ducky = Dr. Donald Mallard, Jimmy = Jimmy Palmer, Vance = Director Leon Vance, Orli = Director Orli Elbaz and Ziva = Ziva David. This will be how characters are referred to in the narrative - all bets are off in the dialogue, when full names or nicknames may be utilized. More character identifications will come in later chapters as new characters appear.

All of the chapters for this story will be named after Ziva-isms (idioms and expressions that Ziva messes up during the series).

And the story picture comes from the month of October 2014 on my official NCIS calendar, just to let you know.

Now, let's continue the story.

* * *

**Foof. Ziva stares without emotion at the man testing her.**

January 2014. It was another cold January day in Washington DC, with the wind chill firmly set. However, it would not interfere with the work at the Navy Yard, specifically that of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS for short.

Inside the NCIS building, DiNozzo, McGee, and Bishop were all sitting in the bullpen, waiting for their next assignment from Gibbs. As Bishop worked on her laptop, sitting on the _desk_ that she was issued, McGee began, "So, Bishop. How have you found your first few days as an official Probationary Agent?"

Bishop replied, "Other than all the Probie-ing you and Tony have put me through, it's going relatively well."

"Yeah, well, that's just a part of being the new kid on the block. It took a few years for Tony to stop hazing me, and he definitely did it to Ziva more than a few times while she was probationary."

"What exactly would that be?"

"Menial labor, some underhanded tricks and pranks, doing the dirty work, stuff like that."

"Oh."

DiNozzo interrupted their conversation with, "Probie. Have you finished those files?" He had Bishop finishing up a couple of case reports that he hadn't "gotten around" to doing.

Bishop replied, "Not yet. Almost done though." Soon after, DiNozzo dropped a pile of files onto Bishop's chair, saying, "Good, you've got a few more to do."

Suddenly, they were interrupted by the leader of the group, Gibbs, who explained, "It'll have to wait. Grab your gear, we got a dead Naval officer in Baltimore."

The other members of the team soon grabbed their backpacks and investigative gear before following Gibbs into the elevator so they could go to Baltimore and investigate the dead Navy officer.

* * *

At the crime scene, McGee proceeded to use the fingerprint scanner to identify the victim. He said upon receiving the results, "Boss, meet Commodore Jennifer Harding, age thirty nine. One tour in Colombia, one tour in Singapore. Married, no children."

Gibbs asked McGee, "The husband?"

McGee checked Harding's service record before continuing, "Her husband is former Army Captain Gary Harding, age 43, now works as a mercenary-for-hire to NATO. From what I can see, he's currently operating in central Africa, been there the past month."

Tony walked up to Gibbs and said, "The neighbors wanted to see if Commodore Harding wanted to come over for a book club meeting. They checked the house and found the blood."

Shortly afterwards, Ducky and Jimmy arrived on the scene, with Ducky saying, "Hello, Commodore. Let's see what happened to you." Walking up to the victim, they saw she had fair white skin, brunette hair that went down to her elbows, and had a lot of blood pouring from her.

Examining the body, Jimmy noted, "Looks like one stab wound to the abdomen and then three to the heart."

Gibbs asked, "Palmer, why would somebody stab somebody three times in the heart and then once in the abdomen."

Ducky added, "I may be able to answer that one, Jethro. The wound to her abdomen didn't go through fully, just piercing the skin. The wounds to her heart, they passed through it. Most likely, we're looking for some kind of knife."

"Time of death?"

Using the liver probe, Ducky determined, "Just under seven hours ago. No defensive bruises, must not have expected the attack."

"Yeah, or she knew her attacker. Bring her back to the Navy Yard."

* * *

At a secret Mossad training center in southern Israel, Orli was waiting for Ziva to arrive, as the former Mossad assassin had said she would come on her own accord, not wanting to show any weakness by being dragged from her home to there. Of course, there came concerns that she didn't know the place, but she knew where it was - her father was the Director of Mossad.

At roughly nine hundred hours local time, Ziva drove up to the training center, getting out of her car. Orli commented, "Thought you weren't going to make it. You left less than two hours ago. Wouldn't have gotten here for another hour."

Ziva reminded her, "You have forgotten how I drive, haven't you?"

"Indeed I have. Come, we need to see if you still have the ability you did back a year or so."

Orli proceeded to walk into the facility, soon followed by Ziva, not sure of what was about to come next for her.

Walking to what appeared to be the medical office, Orli opened the door and Ziva walked inside, soon followed by the Mossad director. Orli explained, "We want to make sure you are physically clear to perform this operation. We'll be taking blood and urine samples along with performing a physical. We don't want you killing yourself because of some physical defect."

Ziva responded, "All right then. Fire away. The sooner we finish this, the better."

Orli injected a needle into Ziva's arm, proceeding to draw blood from the former Mossad officer. Ziva clenched her teeth in order to avoid giving away her pain - even now when she was found an alcoholic wreck, she refused to show weakness, even though it was plastered on her.

And this, Orli knew perfectly. Ziva definitely needed a kick-start if she was going to be able to go undercover. It wouldn't be very good if her alcoholism caused her to slip up in the operation and get her compromised and executed, or killed in a gunfight. Having Ziva ending up dead would not be something Orli wanted, especially given what she knew her predecessor, Eli David would have wanted.

Orli handed Ziva a cup and told her, "I think you know what to do." She took the cup and went off to the bathroom in order to perform her urine test, to see if she was still drunk or if she had any other substances in her system.

Once she had filled up the cup, she handed it to Orli, who then had it sent for analysis to determine Ziva's toxicology report.

As they waited for the report to come in, Orli beckoned Ziva to follow her, which she did, and the duo headed over to the gymnasium, where Orli would get to see if Ziva was physically capable of the tasks she was going to be up to for her undercover assignment.

As Ziva stepped onto the mat, Orli gave a whistle and Ziva's opponent came out and took a look at her. He was roughly six foot five and had plenty of muscles - he was very strong, and he was the opponent Ziva had to take down.

Orli explained, "Let's give you a physical test to see just how much you can still do. Begin."

The muscle ran up to Ziva, who sidestepped in order to dodge his first first. Ziva jumped onto the man, trying to push him onto the ground, a move that ultimately resulted in the thug grabbing onto Ziva's throat.

Ziva swung her foot repeatedly at the man's crotch, only to miss as the man pushed her away, smirking slightly as he enjoyed watching the former Mossad officer struggle.

After a minute, he proceeded to slam her right onto the ground and tackled her. The muscled man got up and walked away from Ziva as Orli walked over and commented, "Disappointing. He wouldn't have been a problem a decade ago. We've got a long way to go before you are ready for the mission."

Ziva looked at Orli skeptically, asking, "What are you insinuating? That I'm weak?"

Orli replied, "Yes. You allowed me to get the drop on you at your residence and now, you lost in the physical test. You've lost your edge and you need to get it back. We need to see just what else we need to improve on and retrain you in that so you can be ready."

Ziva followed the Mossad director to the firing range, which had nobody present but a single human-sized target downrange and a Jericho 941 handgun at the firing station. Orli beckoned, "Let's test your accuracy."

Walking up to the firing line, Ziva took aim with the Jericho before Orli ordered, "Empty the clip at the target."

Ziva did just that, firing every round in the chamber towards the paper target. Once the slide locked back, Ziva took a look at her shots. Roughly half of them landed in the head, with another third in the chest and a couple of misses. The response of the Mossad director was, "Not bad, but you need to improve on your speed. If you don't fire fast enough, it will all be over."

* * *

Back in Washington DC, the MCRT was going over what they knew about Commodore Harding to see if there was anything in there that could have resulted in her death.

Bishop explained, "Commodore Jennifer Harding was off of active duty and was currently running an accounting business on the side."

When Gibbs looked at Bishop very confused, McGee answered, "Commodore Harding was running the ledgers for the bases in Singapore and Colombia. Whenever she's not out of the country, she was a stay-at-home accountant. Customers came to her to ask for her help in managing their ledgers. Abby is going over Harding's computer, but from what it seems, she had several accounts she was working at the time of her death."

Gibbs added, "Guess one of them got her killed."

While Gibbs continued to look at Commodore Harding's picture, Vance walked into the bullpen to announce, "Agent Gibbs, Commodore Harding's husband, Captain Harding is coming online in MTAC in a few minutes. I'm sure he wants some answers about what happened to his wife."

Gibbs responded, "Okay then, Leon." Gibbs then walked out of the bullpen and hopped onto the staircase en route to MTAC, where he would converse with Captain Harding to see if there is anything he needs to know regarding the investigation into his wife's death.

Arriving at the door, Gibbs scanned his eye in the retinal scanner and was then granted access into the Multiple Threat Assessment Center. Walking towards the screen, Gibbs gave the signal for the MTAC operators to put Captain Harding on.

Gibbs greeted, "Hello, Captain Harding."

The captain replied, _"Agent, Gibbs, is it? Is it true? Is my wife dead?"_

"I'm afraid so. She's been dead since 0300 hours local time. Stabbed in the abdomen and heart. Know anybody that would do that?"

_"I know four with that style, including myself, and all four of us are right here in Tanzania. Arrived in late December, not scheduled to leave until early February."_

"Have you spoken to your wife lately?"

_"I last spoke to her four days ago. She mentioned she had been doing the numbers for somebody that just seemed off to her, and she was starting to fear for her own safety."_

"Her body lacked defensive bruises, indicating she didn't put up a struggle."

_"She resigned herself to her fate? That is as sure as hell not like Jen."_

"Or she knew her attacker. I'll tell you more when we know more." With that, Gibbs signaled to cut the feed and he proceeded to walk out of MTAC, en route to see what Ducky and Abby had found out.

Entering the elevator, Gibbs pressed it to go down to autopsy, where Ducky and Palmer were currently working on the body.

In the morgue, the duo were currently checking the victim's chest and abdomen to get a good idea of what the knife could have been.

Entering autopsy, Gibbs asked, "What do you got for me Duck?"

Ducky replied, "Ah, Jethro. As we thought, the cause of death came from blood loss as a result of her four wounds. The wound to the abdomen was the first injury that came and the three to the heart came after."

Palmer added, "Insurance to ensure that the commodore was dead."

Gibbs wondered, "But why would they only nick the abdomen? Why did they partially stab the abdomen before completely stabbing the knife?"

Suddenly, Abby ran into autopsy shouting, "Gibbs! Gibbs! Gibbs!"

Gibbs asked, "What is it, Abs?"

Abby replied, "I identified the knife used to kill the commander. Based on the striations in the incisions, I identified it as an Army K-Bar knife."

"Just like one Captain Harding would have. The killer was trying to frame the husband for murder."

"Oh, and there's more. The reason the wound to the abdomen was shallow was because the knife fell out after entering the abdomen. Add in the fact that there were no defensive wounds, and..."

Palmer surmised, "We're looking for a knife thrower?"

"Looks that way, Jimmy." From what Abby has said and Jimmy deduced, Gibbs could only think that this was yet another strange case. It says something when you've had multiple strange cases.

* * *

Over in Israel, Ziva was currently struggling in her evaluations. Clearly, being out of the business for eight months did not help her out as she lacked the level of skill she once had.

Now, it was her test of endurance. She had to hang onto an iron bar for as long as she possibly could. At one point in time, she had held the record for the longest time holding on the bar at 15 minutes 38 seconds, but the record now was held by Liat, Ziva's replacement after her departure from the agency, and her time was 16 minutes 7 seconds.

Right now, she had been on the bar for seven and a half minutes and Ziva began to feel that her hands were starting to slip from the bar. She refused to let up, though. She would last as long as possible, but it seemed like that there was little time remaining to hold on.

It seemed as if she was slipping away from the life she once knew the very same way she was starting to slip from the bar. She had to hold on, she had to get her skill back, and she had to successfully go undercover for the mission. Even though she was not with NCIS anymore, she still needed to protect them.

But first, she had to make sure she could protect herself and so she had to have the necessary physical condition. That meant she had to stay on as long as she could.

That meant she was able to hang onto the bar for another forty-five seconds before she finally gave out and her knees fell onto the ground, indicating that she had hit her maximum endurance at eight minutes fifteen seconds.

Another test she had disappointed in. She had truly fallen apart since she went off the grid. Now, she had to basically start from the beginning and rebuild her physique to what it once was.

Getting up from the ground, Ziva proceeded over to a nearby punching bag and began punching it as fast as she could, focusing on getting as fast in her arm movements as she possibly could. Once she had speed, then she would have to work on power.

As she punched the bag, memories of the past came up as the demons of her past shaped themselves on the bag. The countless murderers she had helped put away or eliminate while at NCIS, from campus police officer Samuel Tate (who had tried to rape Sarah McGee and then frame her for the murder of her ex-boyfriend) and ex-Army Ranger turned cartel gun Jason Paul Dean to Marine housewife turned porn star Jamie Carr (who killed her friend and then faked her own death) and bartender and currency thief Pat Gillespie. However, one face amongst them all stood out, the face of her father, Mossad Director Eli David.

The man who ordered her to murder her own half-brother because he had become a rogue agent. The man who sent Mossad operative (and her boyfriend at the time) Michael Rivkin to assassinate terrorists and used her to get intel. The man who left her for dead when she was captured by an African terrorist. The man who tried to have her framed for murder when she decided to leave Mossad. The man who killed a reporter who discovered his presence. The man who was murdered before he could reconcile with her. The man who was her only family remaining.

As Ziva began punching the bag, she began to think about all of the more atrocious deeds committed by her father. He fathered a bastard child and manipulated him to become his mole inside of al-Qaeda. He created a monster to fight terrorists. As she punched the bag, she soon began to slow, entering the midst of a complete mental breakdown. Everything she knew had been torn apart. In just one year, she lost her father and then basically tossed away NCIS from her life, and most of all, Anthony DiNozzo. She had nothing left, she had become hollow. And she was unsure if anything else could fill that gap.

Withdrawing herself from the bag, Ziva sat herself down on the ground, laying against a wall, staring up at the ceiling, trying to work herself through this. Could she actually go through with this operation? Was she ready to enter this operation? Did she feel that this operation would be worth it? And why did Orli choose her specifically for the operation? She had many other Mossad agents, more than trained and ready, even Adam Eschel, but she went to the trouble of finding her, after she had gone off the grid and declared her intent to forever leave the business. And the two of them weren't on the greatest of terms - she had purposely misled authorities into searching for Ilan Bodnar in Europe when he had never left the United States and earlier, she had an affair with her father and broke apart her family.

As she thought about everything she knew, she knew that she didn't know anything. That her entire life had changed, that nothing was like it had seemed. She truly had to start from the beginning, both in her physical state and in her mental one to see just what was true in her life, what her life truly was.

Rising from the ground, Ziva walked back up to the punching bag and began to punch it, trying to clear her mind of what she thought she knew and then begin filling it with what was real. It was time to reconstruct her life.

* * *

Meanwhile, returning to the Navy Yard, McGee was working on decrypting Commodore Harding's hard drive to see who she had been doing business with, and then who could have killed her. They were very fortunate that the killer had not found the hard drive and stolen it.

Working his computer magic, McGee was able to pull up the list of ledgers that Harding was working on. McGee said, "Okay, boss, I'm in her computer and am bringing up the contents of her hard drive now."

Pulling up the contents of the commodore's hard drive onto the plasma screen, McGee opened up the folder labeled _WORK_ and then accessed _LEDGERS_. Instantly, a list of businesses opened up, close to a dozen of them.

DiNozzo wondered, "Quite a few businesses. Looks like we'll have to check out all of them. Maybe she noticed an irregularity in one of them."

Bishop soon began compiling a list of employees from all the businesses. After a minute, she announced, "Okay, I have a list of all individuals employed at all of the businesses. All the businesses are small, with less than ten employees each. Several of them are only manned by one person."

McGee added, "Look for any knife throwers."

"None of the businesses are circuses or have anything to do with knives."

Tony pointed out, "Maybe our killer pulled an inverted Jimmy Stewart in _The Greatest Show on Earth_. A killer dressed as a clown in that film. Now, it's a clown who gave up the paint and then became a killer. Check their employment histories, Probie. Hopefully we'll get lucky."

Gibbs added, "We don't get lucky. We get our results. Anything, Bishop?"

After a minute, Bishop had her results. "Okay, of these fifty seven employees, eighteen were previously connected to knives in some way. Seven of them were knife salesmen, so we can filter them out, I think. Do we filter them out?"

"Unless they both sold knives and threw them."

"None of them do, so we'll filter them out. That leaves us eleven suspects. Four were knife manufacturers, leaving us with seven. Of those seven, we have two professional primitive weapons experts and one circus knife thrower."

"Who are they, Probie?" Bishop pulled the three people onto the plasma: Victor Valentin, a self-taught master at throwing axes and daggers, who worked for Cove Lights, a hydroelectricity company; Alec Mishin, a child of two circus gymnasts and a trained knife thrower, who worked for LockDown, a storage company; and Zack Rilper, a caveman re-enactor with knife training who was employed by Tuscan Baking, an Italian bakery.

"That leaves us three. McGee, audit the three businesses the suspects work for. Bishop, run alibis for the three suspects. Tony, look to see if any of the suspects have bought an Army K-Bar knife."

After nine minutes of working, Tony said, "Okay, of our three suspects, Valentin and Mishin both bought Army K-Bar knives. Rilper didn't buy one, nor did the owner of Tuscan Baking."

Bishop added, "Rilper didn't kill Harding. He was running a shift at Tuscan Baking at the time of Harding's murder. Nothing's available on Valentin and Mishin. Neither of them own their own car, they both use company cars."

Gibbs looked to McGee for who the killer was. McGee answered, "Tuscan Baking is clear. The other two businesses aren't so. Compared with all of the storages, LockDown is making much more money than the storages would be bringing in. They must be freelancing or getting payoffs from one of their customers. Cove Lights, on the other hand, bought equipment worth $58,000 but it is only reported that the equipment was bought for $23,900 and no other payments are due."

Gibbs analyzed, "We got two suspects. Tony, you and Bishop check out Cove Lights. McGee, we're looking at LockDown."

* * *

Over at LockDown, located a few miles west of Woodbridge, Virginia, Gibbs and McGee proceeded to look for the owner as well as Alec Mishin, their suspect. Upon seeing their car come up to the entrance, the owner greeted, "Hello, what can I do for you today?"

Gibbs and McGee flashed their badges to the owner as he said, "NCIS. Where is Alec Mishin?"

"What is this about?"

McGee answered, "Mishin is a suspect in the murder of Navy Commodore Jennifer Harding."

"Jennifer's dead? I just saw her two days ago."

"Was she doing your books?"

"Yeah."

"Well, she noticed some discrepancies in your numbers. You were pulling in much more money than you reasonably could. Would you care to explain? Who was paying more than they should?"

The owner stuttered briefly, unable to come up with a response. Gibbs nodded to McGee and he pulled out a pair of handcuffs, preparing to arrest the owner before he shouted, "Okay! A man came to me a few weeks ago and bought a storage container. A few hours afterwards, I ended up stumbling in on him and discovered he was using it to store opium. He offered me triple the rate to keep quiet."

Gibbs asked, "Who?"

"A man named Karim Lefsay. Mid-thirties, black hair, tanned skin. Haven't seen him since that day."

"One more thing. Commodore Harding called you twice in the day before she died. Do you know why?"

"She called me? I checked my voicemail a few hours before I left for home. I left my cell phone in my office, where I wasn't for most of the day. Honestly, I didn't know. I swear."

"Did Alec Mishin have access to your office?"

"Yes."

"Where is he?"

"He's currently dusting some of the empty containers. Section B."

* * *

Within an hour, Gibbs had Alec Mishin sitting in the interrogation room, handcuffed, and now he was ready to get a confession out of him.

Gibbs walked into the interrogation room and took his seat, revealing a folder with Commodore Harding's corpse, the ledger for LockDown, and a picture of a knife. Gibbs explained, "Got a warrant for your apartment. Found an Army K-Bar knife with your prints all over it."

Mishin asked, "So?"

"We also found Harding's blood on it. You should have used bleach. How much did your boss pay you to keep quiet about Lefsay's opium?"

"Twenty thousand. A month. Commodore Harding was getting suspicious about the extra income. I wouldn't let that happen. If she figured it out, I'd lose over two hundred thousand dollars a year in potential income."

"Yeah, I can see why. You've got eight hundred in the bank, would be down to fifty in a month. You were desperate, so you chose to murder Harding. Those knife-throwing skills weren't as useful as you thought. Threw the K-Bar, only lodged itself in her abdomen, forcing you to finish her by stabbing. You tried to frame her husband, Captain Harding, but you didn't know he could not possibly have committed the murder - he was in Africa."

"I should have just knifed her in the back. Navy bitch cost me my life." After that comment, Gibbs stared at Mishin with pure scorn.

* * *

It had been about two and a half weeks since Ziva had been recruited back into Mossad for the high-stakes undercover mission. Despite a terrible start, Ziva has slowly been rebuilding her strength and skill.

Now, she could better shoot, both with utmost precision and speed, much like she had been able to do back at NCIS and Mossad. She also had regained her hand-to-hand combat, being able to take down even heavy adversaries with little difficulty. At this moment, she was almost the weapon Gibbs had once described her to be.

It was very extraordinary how fast Ziva was recovering from her previous drunken state. While she had overcome that aspect, she still had yet to overcome the disgrace she had put on herself for departing NCIS, not to mention the severe depression that she still faced. Her entire life had reshaken by her recent experiences and she already knew she was not the same cold-blooded killer she had been in Mossad, nor was she the investigator she once was while in NCIS. She was neither of them, but right now, she was unsure if she could be either of them. She basically now had to remove everything she was and become a mask, a cover for her undercover work. She had to be nothing like the person she once was.

She had to succeed at this mission, it was both her redemption and her salvation, and perhaps her reunification with the man she had lost to her own inability to come to terms with her feelings. It did not matter what it cost her, she did not care about what part of her would disappear because of the mission, the person she would have to transform herself into.

Now, there was no more time to lament over everything. She had to start her operation. First, she had to change her appearance as they knew what Ziva David looked like. She first applied a black hair dye to her brown hair. While that change wasn't enough to conceal her identity, she then proceeded to cut her hair from its place just above her elbows all the way to her ears. It didn't look very womanlike, but it at least was much less to handle. With her hair looking nothing like it was, Ziva then finished her disguise with two contact lenses that made her eyes green.

Now, the organization could not tell that Ziva was Ziva. Now, her identity was Netali Jarrah, a former Israeli sniper and an expert bombmaker. Somebody that the organization was looking for.

She was already on a flight from Israel to Pakistan, where she would be met by somebody who was part of the organization and once she passed the test, would be brought into the organization, so she could begin spying on them.

There was no turning back now. It was all or nothing, either she succeeded or she died trying.

Once she arrived in Pakistan, Ziva exited her airplane, carrying nothing but the clothes off her back and a hidden communication device that enabled her to keep in contact with Orli.

As she walked towards the exit of the airport, Ziva was met by the man who would initiate her into the organization. He asked, "Are you Netali Jarrah?"

Ziva answered, "I am. And you are?" She looked at the man without emotion, waiting to see how he reacts. She had to maintain an emotionless facade in order to convince him that she was the real deal.

The man replied, "My name is Karim Lefsay and once we get to base, we will see if you truly are who you say you are."

Ziva continued to stare emotionlessly at Lefsay, who was testing her to see if she would react.

**Foof.**

* * *

Okay, some of you may think that the final plot twist was just plain over-the-top, but like I said earlier, Ziva's story will cross over with that of NCIS. And as we continue, we'll see more NCIS characters, such as Fornell, Borin, and a few major surprises.

And please review.

And Happy Thanksgiving!


End file.
